Olafur Eliasson
Tree Photo Works
Stalke Kunsthandel/Galleri,
Vesterbrogade 14A
11.3 to 17.5.1997
Stalke Galleri at Vesterbrogade 14 A opened an exhibition of new works by Olafur Eliasson on Friday, March 11, 1997. The exhibition included, among other works, three large photographic pieces.
Using photography as his point of departure, Eliasson examined the conditions that shape how we see and experience the world. As the artist himself stated:
“Sometimes I see things that are, in themselves, contradictions to the very logic of seeing. Some things make sense, while at other times they make less sense. Do I have a structured way of seeing? — which probably means that a number of things are completely invisible.”
The exhibited photo series revolved around romantic landscape themes such as waterfalls, icebergs, and fog, pointing to a tension between perception, cognition, and the immediately visible — a concern that already occupied a central position in Eliasson’s practice at this early stage.
The exhibition was on view until Saturday, May 17, 1997.
Exhibition view from Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfall Series, works shown for the first time at Stalke Kunsthandel/Galleri, Vesterbrogade 14A, 1997.
Olafur Eliasson’s second solo exhibition at Stalke presented a series of photographic works in which nature, repetition, and spatial experience were articulated as a cohesive installation. The Tree Photo Works series and related photographs of Icelandic landscapes were displayed in extended sequences, where subtle shifts in light, distance, and color activated the viewer’s perception.
In Jyllands-Posten, critic Malene La Cour Rasmussen noted that Eliasson’s images “bring nature into the cultural space” while maintaining a clear distance from romantic notions of landscape. She emphasized that the works do not function as traditional nature photography, but rather as staged situations in which repetition makes differences visible and highlights the constructed character of the works.
In Politiken, Peter M. Hornung described Eliasson’s photographs as far more than documentary images. He stressed that they were not “innocent nature pictures,” but formed part of a larger installation in which photography, painting, and exhibition space mutually influenced one another. According to Hornung, Eliasson challenged expectations of nature as something immediate and authentic, instead directing attention to perception and placement as decisive factors.
Taken together, the exhibition was regarded as an important step in Eliasson’s early practice, in which nature was not presented as a motif but as an active participant in an investigation of space, vision, and experience—concerns that have since remained central to his international practice.
